It identifies the people or potential customers that may be interested in what your business offers.

So, if you’re looking to increase sales on your eCommerce site, then you should be focusing on generating leads.

It is important to note, though, that in order for a lead to become a customer, they should go down the process or purchase funnel.

Purchasing a product or service goes through each step: attention, interest, desire, and action. Leads become aware of a problem, consider their options, and take measures.

Like a funnel, you may start out with a wide choice of leads on top, but only a fraction will get out at the bottom.

In addition, the more visitors you can convert into leads and the more leads you can turn into sales, the better of chances for you to get repeat and new customers.

The right lead generation funnel is one that fits your business and goals. One of the strategies to include to generate leads is a blog.

Blogs will increase not only your digital presence, but also your leads. However, this is only possible if you create momentum with the audience who are likely to purchase.

Here are some of the steps and tips you can use to build a lead generation funnel:

Lead generation funnel: make the blog an extension of the website

Both your blog and website should be linked visually and technically.

You can mirror the navigation and design of your main site and use the sub-domain for the blog from the primary domain like blog.website.com instead of placing it on a separate domain.

Get targeted, organic traffic through relevant content

It’s not enough to create and promote blog posts that will bring traffic to your site. The content should be relevant enough that it acquires targeted organic traffic over time.

Aside from doing thorough research for the topic of your blog post, do keyword research as well to know which actual words people are using to find posts they need similar to yours.

Google Keyword Planner: See what keywords are related to the subject of the blog post, as well as their estimated monthly search volume and level of competition among advertisers.

Google Trends: This lets you check on the keywords’ relative popularity both locally and internationally.

Google Search: Allows you to see how close the title tags match the keywords and the relevance of the content to the search terms.

Google Suggest: The suggestion box that drops down when you start typing on the Google search bar will let you see the various “long tail” extensions of the main keywords.

Checking your competitors’ SEO: Through “View Source,” you can see the HTML code for your competitors’ pages. HTML tags include the title tags, h1 and h2 tags, and meta tags, which all include their (and possibly, your) target keywords.

Simplify the blog’s design

The first step to simplifying your blog’s design is to write down its goals and identify the content and design elements required to achieve them.

Johanna Rivard drives the product and data strategies at PureB2B. She’s a two-decade veteran of the online publishing, B2B demand generation, and technology media markets. When not in the office, Johanna enjoys her family, fitness routines and reading self-help books.